Category: Journal

Reading Jon Krakauer‘s Into the Wild. A compelling account of the tragic story of Chris McCandless and his idealistic trek into the Alaskan wilderness. At the same time, the book offers a cultural history of the fascination wild spaces hold in the modern imagination.

Like this:

This week, it was my great privilege to visit the John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez, California. The beautiful Muir family home was restored from dereliction by the National Park Service, and pays tribute to the father of modern environmental conservation.

Like this:

Terrible to see news footage of the fire at the historic Notre Dame cathedral today. Thinking about the opening lines of Victor Hugo‘s Notre-Dame de Paris (1831): “The church of Notre-Dame of Paris is without doubt, even today, a sublime and majestic building […] a vast symphony in stone, as it were; the colossal handiwork of a man and a people”.

Like this:

On Thursday evening, I started teaching an evening course called The World of Cinema at Cardiff University’s Centre for Continuing and Professional Education. I asked filmmaker, presenter, and critic Mark Cousins if he had any words of advice for students beginning a course on film. This is what he had to say…

Hi Rhys. Film is a world, not a nation or a continent. It's a language, closer to dreams than storytelling. It's young – cinema's best has still to come. It's a friend for life.

@RhysTranter just asked me about world cinema. If I had to show 6 films to introduce people to the world of film, I'd choose Ozu's Record of a Tenement Gentleman,Lubitsch's Ninotchka,Shepitko's The Ascent,Cisse's Yeelen,Satyajit Ray's Devi + Honkasalo's 3 Rooms of Melancholia. pic.twitter.com/9r6AqXa26H

Like this:

I am both delighted and honoured to announce that RhysTranter.com has been selected by the British Library’s UK Web Archive “as an important part of Wales’ documentary heritage”. The site has become part of the repository’s permanent collection, where it will “remain available to researchers in the future”. The UK Web Archive is a partnership between the British Library, the National Library of Wales, and the National Library of Scotland.

Like this:

Reflecting on the decision to pursue my vocation in art, service, and simple living

One year ago today I made a decision to change my life. A cardiology appointment prompted me to think more carefully about my lifestyle choices, and I became motivated to start living according to values of simplicity, humility, and compassion. (more…)

Like this:

Sat down and read Cormac McCarthy‘s play (or “novel in dramatic form”) The Sunset Limited. An African American man saves a white college professor from suicide, and they share a compelling dialogue about life, suffering, religion, and humanism. Sometimes McCarthy’s stage directions lack racial sensitivity and tact (e.g. “the black” vs. “the professor”), but the characters have an intelligent and entertaining critical dialogue. Dianne C. Luce offers an interesting reading of the text’s conclusion over at the official Cormac McCarthy website (contains spoilers):

“The novel’s denouement rests on the intellectual triumph of White, which ironically leads to his suicide, and the temporary rhetorical defeat of Black, who courageously recommits to his belief in the possibility of goodness. Thus the dialogue remains elegantly balanced, poised between forceful articulations of opposing views of life and human nature, giving ascendancy to neither. McCarthy seems to have no ideological agenda here, but rather he aims at capturing the internal debate of the thoughtful individual seeking to navigate the subway of earthly existence, who hears within him- or herself the competing voices of, on the one hand, empirical reasoning and world-wearying experience and, on the other, hope and the transcendent spirit.”

Overall, a genuinely engaging work struck through with darkly comic elements. Recommended.

Like this:

Finished reading Stephen King‘s Under the Dome. It’s one of the author’s longest works, and has been compared by publishers and critics to his earlier post apocalyptic novel, The Stand. While the story of an hermetically sealed American community has the feel of a modern parable, Under the Dome is ultimately a straightforward (if fantastical) crime thriller about small town political corruption.

Like this:

Pages

About

Rhys Tranter is a writer based in Cardiff, Wales. He is the author of Beckett’s Late Stage (2018). His writing has been published in the Times Literary Supplement and the San Francisco Chronicle. In 2016, this website was selected to become part of the British Library’s permanent UK Web Archive. [Read More]

Subscribe

Enter your email address to follow RhysTranter.com and receive notifications of new posts by email.